Are you sure? I thought TJs were boxed. Sure looks like the old GM arms, but I'm getting old and my memory is not what it once was... Er, what was it we were talking about again... Zzzzzz <nodded off again>

Man that buggy is ugly....LOL!! But the sad thing is even with muffler pipe it is still probably safer than some of these new cigar box cars people are driving around in. I just cringe everytime one of them cuts me off in the F-450.. I just think... Man I would flatten that little thing.. I told my wife if you hit anyone while driving it, make sure it is their fault because 9,100 lbs rolling will do some damage to what ever you hit..LOL!!

WOW,,, do I have to prectice!! While at Trike Week in Mo. this June we of course had our "shop" with us, and I mentioned I could and would do minor repairs, MISTAKE,, I worked on 15 trikes and saw very little of the week, but,,, I had fun.

One guy on his way to the event, was pulling his 5th wheel camper behind his pickup, and,, AND (legal in Mo.) behind his 5th wheel he was pulling his trike,, at least untill someone waved him down and said your "HITCH IS BROKEN!" so he drove the trike, wife pulled the camper to the event, and he brings this hitch over and say's,,, "can you weld this back together?", I looked at it, it appeared very straight forward a Reese type of reveiver hitch 2", so I said sure.

Got the grinder out and some other tools, clamped it down to the picnic table and started to gring off the black paint to get to virgin metal. HA HA ha, all of a sudden I hit a patch right where I needed to weld and a pink smoke plumb went high in the air, a smell like burning, and I knew the smell but could not place it just yet, so kept on with grinder. Low and behold,, I discovered it was body plastic, he had gobbed it together with a wire welder and grinded it down, filled it in with the BONDO , sanded it down and painted it!!! I was floored, pulling a trike that sells for $35,000.00 new, he would do something like that. Sorry I have no pictures but this one is easy to see without, and I don't think I could have taken one in front of the guy.

Mike

PS today is the 7th, means my new bender will be here in 2 days, can't wait.

Funny you mention that. A neighbor at my old house went and picked up a buggy, looked great. I went up, slapped my hand on the roll bar and my wedding ring hit the pipe. It sounded very tinny. I grabbed a pair of channel locks and crushed the pipe. Needless to say, it got a new frame.

This cage showed up at the powder coaters down the street from my shop a couple days ago. This was a kit some of you might recognize. When I asked the powder coater who welded it together, I couldn't believe who he said. It was someone I know! I couldn't believe he put out something like this Word is that he did it as a favor for a guy in his off road club....some favor. If I were the 'customer' I'd be pissed that I spent that kind of money on this kit and got a weld job like this.

Unfortunately this kind of 'fab' work seems to be common around here The sad part is that people accept this kind of crap. Apparently they think welding and fabrication is supposed to look like $hit. A lot of people seem to only care about the $$ and how cheap they can get it done for, and consequently get what they pay for. Then there are those who pay good money for a good job and get hosed.
This all makes it difficult for someone like me, who takes pride in my work and likes to be compensated for quality work, to make a prospective customer understand the difference.

I dont see a problem with grinding you welds if they are good welds and you like the smooth look....but those are shitty welds. Looking at those makes me wonder if there is any penetration at the joint or just at the wide goop of the weld....And no bandit yours does not belong here.

I think the point is, if you are paying someone to build, weld, and then powder coat. You better freaking be getting good work out of them!

I dont see a problem with grinding you welds if they are good welds and you like the smooth look....but those are shitty welds. Looking at those makes me wonder if there is any penetration at the joint or just at the wide goop of the weld....And no bandit yours does not belong here.

I think the point is, if you are paying someone to build, weld, and then powder coat. You better freaking be getting good work out of them!

Question here,,, I like the smooth look as well, I did the grind on my first project, I really do NOT know how to determin if I got a good weld or not, what I have been doing is looking at the heat moving away from what I am welding on at 90 degrees, and if the heat "trail" was at least half of the width of my weld I thought I was getting good penitration??? No??? I REALLY signed up for a welding class at local college starts on the 10th of Oct,, really,,, no kidding, honest. But before I started this project I took a 2 piece's of 1.75 ERW and notched on out then welded together and looked at the inside,, looked to me like it was good,,, what do I know!!

thats what it looks like on the tall bike when I came close to the brazing.
all the joints on the bike were brazed together, thats why I put the gussets.
this difference of metals is what caused me some problems.

what could cause this for this cage you show? stop and go to many times? wrong setting? wind? big gap?
some of the grinding marks go pretty deap

Wow I wasn't expecting this much response. I guess the pics don't show as much as if you see it firsthand. I think both Keith and Cris summed it up pretty well. Probably the biggest issue I see with this cage was extremely poor fitup. In which case a REAL Fabricator would have either sent the kit back, or reworked the joints until the fitup was acceptable. Instead the guy just filled the gap with weld, and then ground the piss out of them. I'm not saying that grinding welds is bad, it just needs to be done nicely, not with big gouges. What welds were not ground really looked like shit. They were left that way only because it was too difficult to get the grinder in there.

Clint. I'm sorry if you took this as aimed at you or others that grind their welds. It wasn't intended that way. There's nothing wrong with a nicely smoothed weld as long as the penetration is there. It's just my preferance to not grind my welds unless it is required for some reason. In fact if you weld a cage that has to pass an inspection, say NHRA, ground weld is an automatic failure of the inspection.

I guess it would be easier to point out the problems in the pics if i knew how to add arrows and circles to them.